Gifts from Santa

[Deacfreak07]

@cookout the wrapping paper comment made sense to me because the traditions probably go back a few generations. My depression era grandparents cherish wrapping paper. They fold it up and save it in case times get hard.

 

[wakephan09]

Wow, never heard of anyone getting unwrapped santa gifts.

 

[cookoutdeac]

@cookout the wrapping paper comment made sense to me because the traditions probably go back a few generations. My depression era grandparents cherish wrapping paper. They fold it up and save it in case times get hard.

Gotcha, that makes sense. FWIW, neither of my parents had unwrapped santa gifts growing up, so this was something they definitely started on their own.

 

[HeltonCreek]

I like to give my present unwrapped.

Someone had to make that joke eventually.

 

[LadyDeac03]

all i imagine when i think about unwrapped is the kids fighting about which gifts were there like in A Christmas Story when Ralphie and Randy fight over the blimp or truck or whatever it was.

how did you know? separate piles for everyone? was it just obvious which pile was for who?

There are three kids in my family, and there are three (well, now four...but growing up it was three) major pieces of furniture in our family room/den. My Santa stuff was always sitting out on one chair, my brother's stuff was always on the other chair, and my other brother's stuff was on the couch. Very distinct spaces and the same way every year. Everything not from Santa (i.e. from parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, siblings, etc) was under the tree as soon as it was wrapped or given. Then unwrapped Santa stuff "appeared" while we were asleep from Christmas Eve to Christmas morning.

 

[getsomeDEACinya]

we never got gifrts from parents AND santa...they were all santa gifts...except on christmas eve my mom always gave us new pajamas.

 

[awakeandready]

Everything under/near our tree was wrapped. Even the big stuff had a drape or a large plastic sheet over it. The Santa stuff used different paper and was signed with different hand-writing.

Anything in the stocking that wasn't candy was wrapped with tissue paper. My parents had a lot of long/late Christmas Eve's (with lots of eggnog).

Whew. I was nervous reading the thread because I just realized that I don't know what you guys do! I don't think we went as far as draping over large things but I definitely like everything wrapped. Unwrapping is the bessst.

 

[awakeandready]

Also count me as a wrapped with different paper for Santa and obviously the tag said it was from Santa. It was all under the tree, not different piles based on who it was from.

 

[HalIncandenza]

I dont care whether you are wrapped or unwrapped, we should all agree that wrapping stocking stuffers is overkill.

No kidding. That's like serial killer weird.

I'm wondering how much the difference has to do with number of gifts too. Growing up, I only got probably 3 or 4 gifts total, with one big one being from Santa (wrapped).

My wife had unwrapped and got about eleventy billion presents. I think it may have just been laziness for them.

Socioeconomic status and geography had nothing to do with the difference btw, as we were both poor and Midwestern.

 

[TWDeac]

Jesus christ, you people put way too much thought into Christmas gifts.

 

[Wake4estMike]

Much like everyone else here, we had a combination of gifts from Santa that were wrapped/unwrapped. Santa brought the heat, so things like a basketball goal were obviously assembled and out in the open. All other presents were wrapped but the stocking was not.

The stocking always contains candy, an orange, a new toothbrush, and gum. A few years ago my mom forgot the toothbrush and all us kids (we were all in our 20s) threw such a fit b/c we count on that every year. At lunch she went to the drugstore to get us one.

We also grew up in a neighborhood with a lot of kids the same age so each year a few of the parents would take turns getting on the roofs of the houses and stomping around. My sisters and I were convinced it was my dad but then he would come in and ask if we heard all the footsteps.

Most of the time we were up and creeping down the stairs by 6:30 am at the latest. Every 5 minutes we would go down the stairs and make it about one step further before running back up and getting in bed. To this day, I have never woken up on Xmas past 7:30 (and I'm 29). We now have a recent-ish tradition of a neighborhood breakfast that starts by 10 and all the adults just get smashed and then take a nap.

 

[TBDeac]

Some of my best gifts are stocking stuffers. Tickets to the car care bowl. gift certificates. I like my stocking.

No knocking stockings. Just no need to wrap gifts that are in them.

 

[DeacHawk]

always wrapped.

 

[RDurr]

That's why only one gift at a time gets opened. Everyone sees everything.

Most years my stocking contained a jar of olives and a clementine. Those were not wrapped. If there was something nice in there, it would probably get wrapped. But if it was like a pack of crayons - not wrapped.

holy shit, i just lost it over here

 

[CaptainAwesome]

No knocking stockings. Just no need to wrap gifts that are in them.

of course there is no need...there is no need to wrap any presents. but its just fun. i mean my mom doesn't wrap like a candy bar, but if she threw in like a yoyo or other small toy, or jewelry for my sisters or whatever she'd wrapped it. its just our tradition.

my sisters and i have started buying our parents stocking stuffers because they have never really had much to open on christmas and we literally wrap everything, including candy and chapstick, etc. just so they can get in on the fun. we also like to buy them really ridiculous things for their stockings (like fake barf or toilet seat covers) and watching them open that along with legit stuff is fun to see.

 

[HailToTheDeacons]

The funny thing is that whichever way you did it as a kid the very certainly the "right" way. I just think it is mind bogglingly dumb to see it all at once instead of savoring the opening of presents. My wife thinks that seeing a bunch of wrapped presents under the tree is boring and the kids loose out on the initial visual of santa "coming."

The visual of Santa coming is still there with wrapped presents. There's a lot more things under and around the tree on Christmas morning vs. pre-December 25th.

So for you wrappers, did you just get to run down the stairs/into the room/whatever and then just start frantically opening your santa gifts? How did they keep the santa gifts separate? Part of the reason I like the unwrapped way is because it distinguished the santa gifts from the parents/family gifts, which got to have the sense of decorum and appreciation for individual gifts one would want while opening those.

We would run in and admire all of the forthcoming loot, then yell and wake our parents up. Once they were dressed and had their coffee, we would start with the stockings. Then we would move on to the presents - for each round of opening, someone new would fetch a present for each family member. My parents were pretty good about making sure the really good gifts were the least accessible, so that they would be opened last. If it looked like a sweet present was going to be opened before everything else, they'd comment about opening something else first, or saving that one for later.

 

[WakeUp08]

Wow, never heard of anyone getting unwrapped santa gifts.

Agreed, this thread has been a revelation. In our house, we usually did family Christmas at a completely different time from Santa's presents...either on Christmas eve with my mom's family or later on Christmas day with my dad's family, depending on whose house we were at that year. So you could definitely tell the awesome new pile of presents when Santa had rolled up the night before. And Santa never used the same wrapping paper as Mom and Dad. Duh. I do really like the idea of using brown packaging paper or something like that to make it look like it came straight from the shop at the North Pole.

The only time I can remember getting an unwrapped present is when my brother and I got this sweet mini pool table/air hockey table that my dad took out of the box and put together the night before Christmas.

 

[StarboardDeac]

Our presents were unwrapped as little kids - we each had a pile and it was pretty obvious whose was whose (all the gifts were from Santa...mom and dad didn't give us anything). Once both of us were old enough to know about Santa, our presents were wrapped.

I asked my mom and apparently gifts were always wrapped when she was little, but my dad's parents left their gifts unwrapped...guess Dad won the battle when they were discussing how to go about Santa for us when we were really little.

 

[IAppreciateIt]

I didn't even know people actually did Santa gifts.

We were never allowed to open gifts until everyone had showered and looked presentable. And because this was always a huge family reunion when I was a kid, it took until close to noon before we started. And we'd do the same thing where you had to present your gift to the recipient and give them an awkward hug for the camera.

Made for good family videos I guess.

 

[jc13890]

My parents divorced when I was 3 so growing up I always had two christmas. Santa's presents at moms house were unwrapped, then when I went to pops everything from Santa was wrapped. Def got me thinking at an early age... lolll